What games are you playing now?

August 26th, 2009, 05:44

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Finishing sooner because you feel the need to press on has nothing whatsoever to do with the length of the game, so your point is not logical.

You misunderstand my point, the player has no decision whatsoever in the "pressing on", its automated. For instance, I liked battling that boss, it was fun. I cannot go back and fight that boss battle 5 times because I liked it, the game auto saves me a checkpoint as soon as it's over. I think I could have done that entire section without getting hit, or i can do it without using any healthpacks. I end up playing a game until I'm satisfied with my experience, I'm not just heading hellbent to the end.

I guess I'm OCD in that way, but I find myself grinding extra hours out of a game far more doing that than not making the proverbial jump across the final chasm and being forced to replay an entire section.

so yeah, i end up breezing thru games like OVerlord because of systems like that, instead of savoring the thing and extending my gameplay im forced to carry on.

Basically the game corrupts savefiles, which will make it impossible to finish the game. I moved back to a much earlier save, replaying two entire levels to see if that fixed it, but it didn't.

-- Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

Regarding checkpoints: Personally I also hate not being able to save whenever you want.. but I think it's a trend that is unfortunately going to be around for a while. I don't know the exact reasoning behind it, but I suspect DArtagnan is right - it's often done to extend gameplay by forcing players to redo certain sections when they die. Also it is easier to balance gameplay when you cannot quick-save at any point. Games where you can do that often becomes too easy - or too hard for those NOT wanting to save all the time.

Anyway, since I'm always around to defend the poor developers a little bit, I of course also have a short response to the comments about it being because the devs are lazy
Of course doing checkpoints can sometimes make the technology behind handling the savegames easier - but I still think it's mostly a game design decision. With one game I worked on we actually *had* implemented a "save anywhere" system that worked fine on consoles as well (PS2 and XBox). Late in the beta testing phase we were told by our publisher to scrap that and do checkpoints.. the reason they gave us was that they simply didn't believe us, when we told them it would work fine. They hadn't found any actual problems - they just didn't believe it would pass through QA.
So, in the end we *did* end up with a checkpoint system - but it was the same old "save/load anywhere" code that was used to create/load those checkpoints…

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
You misunderstand my point, the player has no decision whatsoever in the "pressing on", its automated. For instance, I liked battling that boss, it was fun. I cannot go back and fight that boss battle 5 times because I liked it, the game auto saves me a checkpoint as soon as it's over. I think I could have done that entire section without getting hit, or i can do it without using any healthpacks. I end up playing a game until I'm satisfied with my experience, I'm not just heading hellbent to the end.

Oh, you must have been unfortunate, as most games I'm aware of with checkpoints tend to allow you to go back to previous ones - either by selecting the particular checkpoint - or at least through some kind of chapter structure.

I think it's pretty rare that they don't allow that, though I tend to avoid checkpoint heavy games, so I can't be sure.

DArtagnan

Originally Posted by KasperFauerby
Anyway, since I'm always around to defend the poor developers a little bit, I of course also have a short response to the comments about it being because the devs are lazy
Of course doing checkpoints can sometimes make the technology behind handling the savegames easier - but I still think it's mostly a game design decision. With one game I worked on we actually *had* implemented a "save anywhere" system that worked fine on consoles as well (PS2 and XBox). Late in the beta testing phase we were told by our publisher to scrap that and do checkpoints.. the reason they gave us was that they simply didn't believe us, when we told them it would work fine. They hadn't found any actual problems - they just didn't believe it would pass through QA.
So, in the end we *did* end up with a checkpoint system - but it was the same old "save/load anywhere" code that was used to create/load those checkpoints…

Please don't misunderstand - I didn't mean to imply that developers were lazy, but that the game design approach in particular was lazy.

I'm fully aware that developers don't sit around on their asses twiddling thumbs - or maybe they do, but then they're thinking

But it's a lazy design choice, because it's the "easy way out" regardless of who's to blame.

DArtagnan

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Please don't misunderstand - I didn't mean to imply that developers were lazy, but that the game design approach in particular was lazy.

Don't worry - I wasn't being very serious No offense taken..

And in general I agree… I think…

I must admit, though, that when I recently played "Dead Space" I actually thought it added something to the suspense that I could only save at "Save stations". But those are also different from checkpoints IMO. They limits saving, but I'm still allowed to backtrack to a save station after a difficult fight if I want to avoid retrying it.

Originally Posted by KasperFauerby
Don't worry - I wasn't being very serious No offense taken..

And in general I agree… I think…

I must admit, though, that when I recently played "Dead Space" I actually thought it added something to the suspense that I could only save at "Save stations". But those are also different from checkpoints IMO. They limits saving, but I'm still allowed to backtrack to a save station after a difficult fight if I want to avoid retrying it.

In my opinion:

It can work under certain circumstances, but it's hard to define some kind of universal rule or standard. It really has to fit the game structure.

But if you think about games like System Shock 2 or Aliens vs Predator 2 - they didn't need to limit saves to create amazing tension.

SS2 was clever in that it made you save resources and think strategically about how to approach a given type of enemy. This created tension based on having to optimise and enforcing more than one kind of caution. It extended gameplay by having the player reload if he wasted ammo, but it didn't force it upon him. It gave the player a choice of whether or not he'd want to play it safe or not. A great kind of extension that's not even noticed by most players.

I thought Dead Space was a good game (~7-8 / 10) - but nothing like SS2.

The save station approach is certainly better than traditional checkpoints, but I still think it has more problems than benefits. In a game like Dead Space, the gameplay is basically doing the EXACT same scenario over and over - after the gameplay peaks at around level 4 - you shouldn't force players to redo sections that are basically like the whole rest of the game.

But I agree, it adds tension - but it's the wrong kind of tension to me, because it's not so much dread based on atmosphere or enemies - but dread based on having to redo everything again

DArtagnan

Basically the game corrupts savefiles, which will make it impossible to finish the game. I moved back to a much earlier save, replaying two entire levels to see if that fixed it, but it didn't.

Wonderful … and of course none of the first-to-press reviews catch it because they never finish the games …

I have been working on other stuff and haven't finished Wolfenstein yet. I read something about it being related to replaying missions … is that your experience? I'm just sticking to a straight-through run.

Originally Posted by txa1265
I have been working on other stuff and haven't finished Wolfenstein yet. I read something about it being related to replaying missions … is that your experience? I'm just sticking to a straight-through run.

Yes.

It broke when I cancelled the airfield mission.

-- Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

playing Settlers:Rise of an Empire, got it for like 7 bucks a while ago.

Nice game, mostly just a calm city building to sit and watch develop. Really not in the mood for action right now, so I really kinda like it. I can go to the restroom and come back and life carries on whilst I'm gone. The combat model is really simplistic and kinda blows, but you know - I'm kinda thankful for that. Click, look at the scuffle and hope when the dust settles your crew is the one left standing. Everything takes a long time, as Ive read is typical to the series, thankfully they have put a x2&3 speed up button for times when you may need it.

It'll probably bore me here pretty soon, but for now it's a cool little ant farm of a game that i'm having a good time with. Nice graphics too.

I'm still tinkering with Plants Versus Zombies every once in a while, but mostly I've been working on a round of UFO:ET that I started many months ago. I should be working on Drakensang, but it seems that I fire up "XCom Revisited" when I get time to play. I'm starting to wonder if I'm building up some sub-conscious aversion to games that require a major "block o' time per session" commitment, even on the rare occasions I've got such a hunk of time available. That's going to be a problem.

Tho I dont like the world half as much as I like WH40K, it's still pretty interesting nonetheless. The Warhammer universe is just so over the top, it's always entertaining in a heedless ultraviolence kinda way. I just cant help but snicker when the Skaven are being thrown in all directions as a cannonball is hurled right in the middle of them. MOC is different from Dawn of War, in that youre controlling far more of a legion, unfortunately this tends to bog down my pc a little bit here and there. There's rpg element in how you build your heros, but also how you build your persistant army that you drag thru the game with you. Towns w/ temple, armory, barracks, and alchemist exist that you can use to buy items, warriors, or items for your warriors. All the usual rts upgrades to troops are gotten this way. Loot drops on the battlefield too, but you gotta be quick enough to gather it all before the victory screen pops up or youre SOL..

At first I was walking all over everything, then the difficulty went up when Skaven got rolled out. The rats can be a formidable foe, and I got hammered a few times pretty hard until i started hanging back and being a little more patient and thoughtful in my attack. Now i'm doing good against them, but the campaign has suddenly put me in charge of the Elves.

Overall it's a fun game. Ive been playing it for 3 days now, had I paid full price for it, I feel it would have been worth it.

Just started playing Wolfenstein again. I discovered a hack that allows anti-aliasing, and it makes a huge difference in how the game looks, although you suffer a large performance hit with it. I'm also playing without the quest compass or a crosshair by means of more hacks.